The present invention relates to a reinforcement that connects right and left-side front pillars of a vehicle body in order to reinforce an instrument panel and the vehicle body and, more particularly, to a reinforcement that allows effective use of space.
Conventionally, reinforcements that connect right and left-side front pillars and reduce damage to a vehicle body at the time of a side impact have been widely adopted. Such a reinforcement is desired to have a function of retaining a wire harness or other members. Therefore, for example, a reinforcement disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. HEI 11-115550 has a rectangular closed-section portion for securing a strength and an open-section portion for retaining a wire harness.
However, since the aforementioned reinforcement is provided with the closed-section portion and the open-section portion, the reinforcement has a problem of an increased size (increased diameter) as a whole.
The invention has been accomplished to cope with the aforementioned problem. A characteristic thereof is that in a reinforcement of an instrument panel that connects left and right-side front pillars of a vehicle body, a section of at least a portion of the reinforcement has a generally letter-H type shape (generally letter-H shape). Therefore, the reinforcement has opening portions, so that members and component parts, such as a vehicle functional component part-mounting member, a functional component part, a wire harness and the like, can be disposed and laid in the opening portions. Hence, the space occupied by the reinforcement (the external shape thereof) can be effectively used. Furthermore, since the section of the reinforcement is a generally letter-H shape, the reinforcement secures a necessary torsional rigidity while having a reduced sheet thickness.
In this case, if the reinforcement is formed integrally with at least one of a mounting member for mounting a vehicle functional component part, such as a steering column (assembly), a passenger seat airbag (assembly) and the like, a vehicle functional component part, such as a striker of a glove box and the like, and a center brace, a reduction of the number of component parts can be accomplished. At the same time, since there is no need to separately secure such component parts by welding or the like, the production cost can be reduced. Furthermore, if a vehicular wire harness is laid within an outer contour of the reinforcement defined by a section of the reinforcement, the space occupied by the reinforcement is effectively used, and a path of the wire harness is determined, thus achieving an advantage of stably securing the wire harness.